The Spy and the Traitor

He [Lyubimov] spoke English with a fruity upper-class accent, larded with old-fashioned Britishisms (What ho! Pip pip!), making him sound like a Russian Bertie Wooster. Lyubimov had developed a fascination for all things English or, more accurately, the aspects of English culture that he liked: whisky, cigars, cricket, gentlemen’s clubs, tailored tweed, billiards and gossip.

Here was a perfect intelligence cycle: Gordievsky was briefing the Prime Minister on how to respond to the Soviets, and then reporting back the Soviet reaction to that behaviour. Spies usually furnish facts, leaving the recipient to analyse them; with his unique perspective, Gordievsky was able to interpret, for the West, what the KGB was thinking, hoping and fearing. ‘That is the essence of Oleg’s contribution,’ said the MI6 analyst. ‘Getting inside the minds of others, getting into their logic, their rationality.’

His rebellion had always been, in part, a cultural one, a defiance of the philistinism of Soviet Russia. Leaving an obscure hint from Western literature [Somerset Maugham’s Mr Harrington’s Washing] was his parting shot, a demonstration of his own cultural superiority. Whether or not he escaped, the KGB would comb through the transcripts of his telephone conversations afterwards, and realise they had been mocked: they would hate him all the more, but perhaps admire him too.